Designing MyGov
View the style tiles →
A project with a scope as big as MyGov requires lofty ideals. Invoking patriotism without partiasanship, pride without boasting, and classical ideals while appearing contemporary – all part our charge of reimagining the relationship between government and the people. To that end, we wanted to share the where the visual direction MyGov is heading. I’ve been working hard the past several weeks distilling our research at both the Library of Congress and National Archives into style tiles.
Style tiles are essentially design swatches used to create a quick visual guide for the design and development of MyGov. Rather than create a full visual design mockup in Photoshop or Illustrator, style tiles provide a roadmap for where the MyGov UI design direction. This can then be used to create design elements, or reusable building blocks, that comprise a page in the MyGov platform – especially useful given the mobile first, responsive design approach we’re bringing to MyGov. For more on style tiles, here’s the source.
These design swatch elements go beyond the traditional red, white, and blue to something patriotic, aspirational and accessible. The color palette, while still evolving, supports this by bringing in browns, parchment, and even green into the mix. For typefaces, we’re starting with Century Gothic and Goudy Bookletter - both distinctly American typefaces. This brings us full circle as Goudy Bookletter draws it’s inspiration from the typefaces I researched at the Library of Congress. The iconography introduces embellishments from print, such as bookmarks, typographic flourishes, and watermarks, to modern day web page interface elements. This complements the MyGov experience persona which we published earlier.
We’ve been incorporating many of these design elements into our product development. As always, we value your input and feedback. We’re also looking at some interesting ways we can involve the larger MyGov community in the development of the brand identity. Stay tuned.